Deployable and Reusable Pop-Up Bamboo Gridshell Traditionally Fabricated in Mixed Reality

Handwork fabrication techniques performed on natural materials provide an important example of local resiliency in an era of increased focus on rapidly renewable and reusable building components. The preservation of cultural heritage may be aided by emerging technologies as knowledgeable populations age and may potentially increase interest in historic crafting techniques among younger generations. This project demonstrates an attempt to bridge together local materials and crafting with mixed reality technology in a rural and traditional setting. Using only mixed reality holograms to guide the process and convey technical design goals, the collaborators completed a bamboo gridshell with physical behavior characteristic of asymptotic geometry. Mixed reality visualizations developed from computational models guided the placement of temporary constraints and dictated the assembly of the bending-active bamboo components, while geometry guided the structure into a deployable morphology. The work outlined in this paper research seeks to contribute to the discourse on the effectiveness of mixed reality when combined with experienced, handwork fabrication knowledge.